Deep down in everyone's head, there are hopes and dreams that we've let fall by the wayside. Some creative, athletic or musical talent we wished people would recognize and pay obscene amounts of money to watch us perform. "If I just would have worked on my jump shot." "If I just would have turned off the TV and picked up the paint brush." "If I just would have practiced, practiced, practiced." It takes more patience and persistence than most of us have to stick with our expressive abilities.

I've met photographers who leave their dark rooms in the dark, actors who sell insurance instead of reciting monologues, high school basketball stars who stop running, and writers who settle into jobs as English teachers.

Every now and then, I get a glimpse of what it takes to keep an artistic dream alive, and one such occurrence happened last Monday.

I was doing one of my side gigs (I'm starting to think all of my jobs as side gigs), interviewing a local singer/songwriter named Jason Daniello. He has a new band called the Argonauts, a new solo CD and a bunch of western roots rock songs. His day job is at record store in town, but his world is his music.

As we split a meal, a bottle of wine and a few beers, he told me about his past bands. He started out as an authentic product of the '80's, playing bass in a glam rock cover band called Irokk. He quickly moved on to a thrash band called Korruption and whipped out Metallica and Slayer riffs. Everybody has to start somewhere.

He moved to Albuquerque to go to college and study vocal performance. As he took classes, he received free recording time at a studio, and eventually amassed a collection of ten recorded songs (which would make up the bulk of his solo CD). Meanwhile, he was in a mellow, adult contemporary band called Naomi for the next five years. The band made a splash locally, but as with happens with band members over time, the group wanted to go in different directions and called it quits.

In the middle of his trip down memory lane, he got the urge to play around 10:30 at night and called up a new bar in town called Burt's Tiki Lounge. Jason asked if he could come down and play, and they said he could. He called his friends and I called mine, trying to get a crowd, but Monday night is Monday night. Almost no takers.

Jason still put on a shiny red western shirt and straw hat and got ready to go. We hightailed it around downtown, picking up some gear. I played the role of roadie, carrying in a mike stand and amp at the bar. I never minded being a roadie, remembering when I helped a drummer friend set up at a bar when I was 19. Because I brought in equipment, I didn't get carded, and because my friend was in a reggae band, I was high. Underage, stoned and in a bar listening to reggae. Barring the climaxes of sex, there are few moments as pleasurable.

As Jason set up, a girl in a booth behind me asked out loud to her friends who this guy was. I turned around and said "This is Jason Daniello. He plays western rock songs. He's got some smooth catchy songs."

The girl, looking offended that I dare answer her question, responded "What are you? His PR guy or something?"

I explained I was doing piece on him for a local weekly arts paper called Crosswinds, and she cocked her head and said "Oh, I think I've heard of that." Very nice of her to validate what I said as possibly true. She and her friends left before he started playing. Just because you have talent doesn't mean the public will care.

But Jason didn't care about that. He played for the next two hours straight receiving minimal tips and a couple free beers. As I drank a couple double gin and tonics, it dawned on me that this is what it takes. It takes putting everything else aside, it takes running two more sets of wind sprints, it takes being hunched over a typewriter trying to think of a better word than 'good.'

It takes playing until the bar closes on a slow Monday night in the middle of the desert. And Jason still turned some heads in that place.

Chris Jungle is currently trying to get a side gig as a PR guy or something.